No Clean Feed

The federal government has green-lighted its highly controversial mandatory ISP filtering plan.

FULL STORY

COMMENT: Say goodbye to the youth vote Kevin.

New NSW newspoll. Labor still heading for a beating.

The latest Newspoll published in The Australian on voting in NSW is further bad news for NSw Labor and Kristina Keneally. Primary support for Labor is at just 26%, with the Coalition on 44% (+2) and the Geens up a whopping 5% to 17%. The 2PP is running 59-41 in favour of the Coalition. No graphs yet.

Average Green Vote in the Blacktown/Mt Druitt area.

Some of you may remember me making some graphs for the Blacktown Greens after the last council. I've now made graphs for the last state/federal/council and average vote using GEGraph with the results displayed in Google Earth. The elecorate outline backgrounds comes from Ben Raue at The Tallyroom Blog. (The Federal Greenway/Chifley backgrounds are the new proposed ones, not the previous) Not all booths have been used for all 3 elections. The Greens only ran in 1 ward the in the last council election and with a higher vote at the council election, those booths have a higher average than others.Let me know what you think.

State 2007

Federal 2007

Council 2008

Average

Pollytics: Data, fiction and politics.

Possum has written a brilliant post over at his Pollytics blog. I won't spoil it for you but here is a quote.

That linear regression is statistically significant to so many decimal places that I had to go into the guts of my stats software to find a value that wasn’t zero. The p-value of the linear regression is 0.000001 (rounded up), meaning that there is less than a 1 in one million chance that the long term increase in demand we are witnessing could be due to chance alone. It’s a slow grinding increase, but a consistent one regardless of the local, short term variation involved.
If you were a government facing that kind of data, there would be absolutely no hesitation at all, on either side of politics, to plan for a future which contains that increasing demand for this particular service. There might be political differences over how to do it, maybe even on what ought to be done – but there would be universal acceptance of the empirical reality of increasing demand, albeit one that contains significant variation at any given time. Similarly, if you were a business or an industry facing that sort of data on the demand for your own product, there would be universal action to deal with it. In fact – you would struggle to find anyone that would suggest such data doesn’t have an observable and statistically significant linear trend over time strong enough to warrant acting on.
Yet – the data above isn’t actually polling data about demand for a government service...

Turnbull calls Abbott a flip-flopper and says he's full of "Bulls*it"

Malcolm Turn has just posted on his blog about the Coalition's objection to the ETS. In it he says Abbott has changed his position plenty of times and that lowering emissions without cost is "bullshit" and that Abbott knows this. Looks like the disunity in the party is just starting, not coimng to an end as they would like us to believe.

While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott, was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy.

Greens booth worker assaulted by DLP booth worker. The story I was told.

Earlier today I got a call from a friend of mine who is a member of the Blacktown Greens. He and another member of the Blacktown Greens (for the purpose of this story we will call him Jim but that is not his name) were handing out HTVs at Warrawee in the electorate of Bradfield. Jim noticed that the DLP hot-to-vote cards had no "Authorised by" statement on it and went inside to complain/enquire about it. When he returned the DLP worker called 'Jim" a "fat pig" and told him to go lose weight. Other booth workers told the DLP worker to calm down and he started abusing them. After getting really angry and really loud the cops were called on the DLP worker.

According to TheTallyRoom there are reports 'Jim' was also pushed over a fence. Either my source at the Blacktown Greens didn't mention this to me or I didn't hear it. I will confirm in the morning whether or not the pushing over a fence actually happened

p.s I got the call around 3:30pm and tweeted about it here here and here

Booths where Liberal or The Greens scored big wins or big swings - Higgins Edition

Below is a list of booths where either the Libs or Greens scored big primary or 2PP wins. The number in brackets indicates total formal votes in that booth. (For the purpose of this "big win" will mean over 55% primary for Liberal and 60% 2PP while for The Greens the criteria is 37% primary and 45% 2PP)


Higgins
Alamein (862) - GNS 40.72% primary & 47.68% 2PP . LIB +8.3% primary and +11.4% 2PP 
Armadale (1648) - LIB 55.89% primary & 60.07% 2PP
Ashburton (1892) - GNS 38.16% primary & 45.93% 2PP
Burwood (1,017)  -  GNS 37.36% primary.
Burwood West (1,233) - GNS 40.79% primary.& 49.47% 2PP
Campberwell Middle (991) - LIB 60.95% primary & 65.19% 2PP
Carnegie Upper (980) - GNS 43.88% primary &  55.71% 2PP
Chadstone (1,663) - LIB +6.9% 2PP
Darling (1,355) - LIB 61.70% 2PP
Glen Iris (2,188) - LIB 60.28% 2PP
Glen Iris South (1,559) - GNS 40.56% primary & 47.59% 2PP
Hawkesburn Central (997) - LIB 60.29% 2PP & +13.3% 2PP. DLP 13.84%
Comment: Libs only increased their primary vote by 3.6%. The reason for their huge 2PP increase is Labor polled 43% at the 2007 election. This election only 19% of those Labor voters went to Greens with 13.84% going to the Democratic Labor Party.
Hughesdale North (724) - GNS 46.41% 2PP
Kooyong Park (615) - LIB 64.88% primary and 67.15% 2PP
Malvern (2,775) - LIB 56.47% primary and 60.79% 2PP
Malvern Lower (1,312) - LIB 67.76% primary and 70.96% 2PP
Murrumbeena (1,553) - GNS 38.51% primary & 49.07% 2PP
Orrong (1,314) - GNS 41.14% primary & 49.09% 2PP
Prahan (1,100) - GNS 48.27% primary & 58.18% 2PP
Prahan East (2,483) - GNS 41.04% primary & 52.24% 2PP.
South Yarra (533) - GNS 47.28% primary & 55.35% 2PP
South Yarra Central (935)  GNS - 39.04% primary & 46.52% 2PP
Toorak (2,399) - LIB 72.41% primary & 75.91% 2PP
Toorak Central (1,704) - LIB 63.15% primary & 67.90% 2PP
Toorak West (428) - GNS 46.27% 2PP. LIB -24.45% primary & -21.21% 2PP
Windsor (920) - GNS 45.76% primary & 57.83% 2PP

Live Higgins by-election results.

10pm Sunday. Figures now include pre-poll and postal votes.


9pm - Just waiting for one more booth (Malvern) in Higgins so I can post the final ordinary vote results. They're taking forever.


8:45pm - Final results from tonight's counting. Postals and pre-polls etc to be counted over the next few days. Seems like a low-turnout.



8pm Victory for Kelly O'Dwyer and the Liberal party.


(Independents, Australian Sex Party, One Nation and  DLP swings are the same as their primary vote)
Votes counted - 71.70% (% of enrolment)
Booths Counted -  36 of 36

Informal - 3.87%
More after the jump.

Live Bradfield by-election results.

10:50pm Sunday - Figures including postals and pre-polls have been updated.


10pm - Final ordinary votes result updated.


Too many CDP candidates and they're getting hardly any votes. I've removed all but the James Whitehall from the table for ease and quicker updates.

(CDP swing is for Whitehall only.) (Swings for Independents, EFNE, One Nation and Australian Sex Party are same as their primary vote)

Votes counted- 74.24% (% of Enrolment)
Booths Counted - 37 of 37

Informal - 6.78%

Bradfield and Higgins by-elections. Live updates from the ground..

This post will be updated with live results starting at 6pm. For the moment I will update with stories from people at ground zero. All stories are coming from the people themselves and are either straight to me or found on Twitter. All twitter stories and photos will be linked to the original poster.

5:40pm - Just 20 minutes of voting left. Things have slowed right down on Twitter.

3:50pm - Just received news that a DLP booth worker was abusing other booth workers at Warrawee and had to be removed by police. #bradfield

3:30pm - 2 &1/2 hours left to vote. Should start to see a rush of voters again soon.

2:15pm - News coming through that Australian sex Party candidate Fiona Patten was pulled over by the police after complaints at the words "SEX PARTY" on the back of her campaign van.

2:05pm (From thebigriboldi) Brendan nelson at west pymble #bradfield

2:00pm -  (From thebigriboldi) Lovely family of four greens at west pymble public said 'good luck' on the way out #bradfield

1:35pm - (From godwingrech) @latikambourke Latika dear, can you please ask the S*x Party whether they'll be taking their defeat lying down? #Higgins Love GG)

1:30pm - (From simonsinger) Talking to friends and family in Higgins, many votes for Australian Sex Party. Numbers should be interesting. Top 3? #Higgins

1:05pm - Looks like things are starting to slow down. Will probably pick up again towards the close.

12:50pm (From latikambourke) One male, (estimate mid thirties) 'voted the way I always do - Liberal.' #Higgins

12:35pm (From latikambourke) First time Greens voter (45 year old male in suit and tie) 'Liberals obviously aren't taking the environmental issue seriously.' #Higgins

12:25pm (From latikambourke) One mum, 'I wouldn't vote for Tony Abbott if I was paid.' #Higgins

12:15pm - (from latikambourke) Kelly everywhere!

12:10pm - (Photo from leerhiannon) Greens Bradfield Candidate Susie Gemmell with Kevin Rudd.

12:05pm - (Photo From benraue via Sam Bauers)
Comment: The following is being handed out by the Sex Party in Bradfield. Pretty clever if you ask me.

11:55am - (From corduroy) Sex party booth worker gave Tony Abbott a condom in case he "gets lucky". Nice work. #bradfield

11:50am - Photos from Chrisquirk

 

11:35am - (from Rrrrohan) Juvenile sex party volunteer in #higgins keeps putting VOTE 1 SEX stickers on Kelly's corflute face. Everyone hates him.

11:30am - Just talked to a friend handing out Green's How-to-vote's at Warrawee in Bradfield. He said all the booth workers have been friendly to each other and nobody has said anything rude to him about The Greens. The general feel is that The Greens will do well but Liberal will win.

10:40am - (From benraue) I'm pretty sure the Sex Party people are being paid. The woman couldn't say the party name without giggling #bradfield

Bradfield by-election. How-to-Vote cards and polling places.

Antony Green has a good preview for Bradfield. With 22 candidates running there simply isn't enough time for me to get all the pictures and How-to-Vote cards. I will post here the HTVs I am able to get a hold of.

HOW TO VOTE CARDS
Susie Gemmell - The Greens.

Mariana Leishmann - Australian Sex Party

Phillip Dowling - Independent

Bradfield voters have above average education. Those smart enough to see the advantage of having a local independent for 12 months can be independent also in allocating their preferences.

Some will vote for all the independents first,concerned that Bradfield has not been represented by a long-term resident since 1996.

Many voters have told me that they will put me first and then follow their traditional party allegiance.

However all boxes must be numbered from 1 to 22. If you make a mistake, ask for a new ballot paper.

Simon Kelly - Independent

Hint: start with a 1 in box 12, finish with a 22 in box 16

Paul Fletcher - Liberal Party

Goronwy Price - Environmentalists for Nuclear Eneregy

Note: It's really only first-preferences that make an impression for a party like ours.  Your second and following preferences will decide between Liberal, Labor etc.

 

NUMBER EVERY BOX, STARTING WITH 1 FOR GORONWY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BALLOT PAPER.  

Polling Places

ASQUITH		Asquith Public School Dudley St	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
KILLARA		Beaumont Road Public School 17 Beaumont Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
CHATSWOOD		Chatswood Public School Pacific Hwy	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
LINDFIELD		Cromehurst Special School 8 Nelson Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
CHATSWOOD		Dougherty Community Centre 7 Victor St	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GORDON		Gordon East Public School Rosedale Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
PYMBLE		Gordon West Public School Ryde Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
HORNSBY		Hornsby Hospital Palmerston Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
HORNSBY		Hornsby Youth and Community Centre Cnr Muriel and Burdett Sts	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GORDON		Ku-ring-gai Municipal Council Chambers 818 Pacific Hwy	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
LANE COVE NORTH		Mowbray Primary School 635 Mowbray Rd West	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
PYMBLE		Pymble Public School Crown Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
PYMBLE		Sacred Heart Parish Hall cnr Pacific Hwy & Bobbin Head Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
CHATSWOOD		Salvation Army Chatswood Cnr Archer and Johnson Sts	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ROSEVILLE		St Andrew's Church 1 Bancroft Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ROSEVILLE		St Barnabas' Anglican Church 30 William St East	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ST IVES		St Ives Community Hall Village Green, Memorial Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ST IVES		St Ives High School Yarrabung Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ST IVES		St Ives North Public School 87 Memorial Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ST IVES CHASE		St Ives North Scout Hall Warrimoo Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
TURRAMURRA		Turramurra Uniting Church Hall Turramurra Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
WAHROONGA		Waitara Public School Edgeworth David Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
WARRAWEE		Warrawee Public School Pacific Hwy	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
TURRAMURRA NORTH		Lady Davidson Hospital Bobbin Head Rd	8am - 6pm	Yes
CHATSWOOD		Chatswood Guide Hall Anglo St	8am - 6pm	No
CHATSWOOD WEST		Holy Trinity Church Hall 44 Beaconsfield Rd	8am - 6pm	No
HORNSBY		Hornsby Girls High School Edgeworth David Ave	8am - 6pm	No
SOUTH TURRAMURRA		KU South Turramurra Preschool 10A Auluba Rd	8am - 6pm	No
LINDFIELD		Lindfield Primary School Pacific Hwy	8am - 6pm	No
WEST PYMBLE		Pymble West Public School Apollo Ave	8am - 6pm	No
ST IVES		St Ives Park Public School 7 Acron Road	8am - 6pm	No
TURRAMURRA		St James' Anglican Church Hall King St	8am - 6pm	No
KILLARA		St Martin's Anglican Church Hall 9b Arnold St	8am - 6pm	No
TURRAMURRA		Turramurra North Public School Bobbin Head Rd	8am - 6pm	No
SOUTH TURRAMURRA		Turramurra Public School Kissing Point Rd	8am - 6pm	No
WAHROONGA		Wahroonga Presbyterian Church Hall cnr Stuart St & Illoura Ave	8am - 6pm	No
WAHROONGA		Wahroonga Public School 71 Burns Rd	8am - 6pm	No

Higgins by-election - Candidate Info and How to Vote cards.

There are 10 candidates for the Higgins by-election on the 5th of December. Here they are in the order they appear on the ballot paper. All pictures and candidate information are taken from their official website where possible,

Stephen Murphy - Independent
A member of The Climate Sceptics Party. Running as an independent as the party has not yet finalised it's registration.
Here's what Stephen says on his website. "I strongly believe that we have been mislead on the issue of climate change.I can find no credible scientific evidence supporting the claim that human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming - can you ?"

Fiona Patten - Australian Sex Party

Fiona is the convenor of the Australian Sex Party and has had 20 years experience as a lobbyist and industry association CEO around the federal parliament. “I’ve had more experience representing people around the parliament in Canberra than most candidates for a House of Reps seat have had”, she said. “Representing the people of Higgins would be a challenge but I’d hit the ground running”.

Ms Patten’s background is in representing adult retailers and small business operators and she is committed to getting rid of the extraordinary amount of red tape and taxes that hinder people setting up small and family businesses.

Kelly O'Dwyer - Liberal Party 

After leaving university, Kelly embarked on a legal career at Freehills.
Later, she spent almost four years working as a Senior Adviser to the Federal Treasurer. Most recently, she was an executive at the National Australia Bank.
Kelly is a board member of Creativity Australia, an organisation working with marginalised members of the community. Prior to this, she volunteered as a member of the Victorian Advisory Council of Camp Quality, an organisation that helps children with cancer and their families.


Issac Roberts - Liberal Democrats

Isaac works as a Chartered Accountant with a large Melbourne accounting firm.

He has specific expertise in the areas of tax policy and legislation, and regularly provides advice in relation to those areas to large private companies and high wealth individuals.

He specific areas of interest include civil liberties and freedom, energy policy and climate change, immigration, LGBTI rights, welfare policy and taxation.

Clive Hamilton - The Greens

Clive Hamilton is one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals. He founded The Australia Institute in 1993 and built it into Australia’s leading progressive think tank, serving as its executive director until early 2008 when he took up a position as professor of public ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics.
Clive is particularly well known for his expertise and commentary on the politics and science of climate change, on which he has written two books, with a third on the way. His work on ‘affluenza’ and consumerism, including the ‘downshifting’ phenomenon, has stimulated a national debate on materialism and the sources of happiness.

David Collyer - Australian Democrats

David Collyer was previously senior adviser to then-senator and party leader Lyn Allison.  Earlier, he held key public affairs roles at the Metropolitan Ambulance Service and at Kodak Australasia.  He is a graduate of Melbourne’s film and television school, then at Swinburne and now at the VCA.  He is the father of two and lives in Kew East.  He publishes on the Victorian Democrats’ blog at dinkumdemocrats.com

  
Joseph Toscano - Independent

Well known Anarchist who has contested the Victorian Senate at every Federal election since 1990. Dr Toscano is a medical practitioner, having qualified in medicine through the University of Queensland, and was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine by Melbourne University in 1987 for a thesis on spinal cord paralysis.. Toscano is the editor of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review, a radio commentator with 3CR, and describes himself as a public intellectual and historical author.  (Info Source: Antony Green)




Steve Raskovy - One Nation

Steve came originally from Hungary in 1956 and has joined One Nation because he knows the horrors of living under a totalitarian regime where only one way of thinking is tolerated people can be jailed for speaking their views. When Steve came here migrants blended into the community and didn’t try to impose their culture and values on the rest if the nation. In 1964 Steve represented Australia as a wrestler at the Tokyo Olympics. He has since been awarded the Order of Australia medal.



Peter Brohier - Independent

Peter Brohier was Chairman of the former National Sea Highway Committee, a group that successfully lobbied for the ferries crossing Bass Strait to be subsidised as if part of the national highway system. He is a law graduate from Monash University and is standing in Higgins to bring attention to his plans for transport infrastructure. He runs a company that prints map reproductions, including reproductions on an intriguing variety of clothing items. (Info source: Antony Green)

John Mulholland - Democratic Labor Party

Mulholland is secretary of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and is something of a warhorse for the party, having stood at most state and federal elections since his first contest in Bruce at the 1977 federal election. He had a brief moment of glory at the 2006 Victorian election when he was initially declared elected as a member of the upper house North Metropolitan Region. A re-count revealed a data entry error had boosted the DLP vote, and Mulholland's victory was not confirmed by the re-count. Mulholland has had a varied working life as a fruiterers hand, postie, foundry worker, teacher, guidance officer, school principal, psychologist in one of Melbourne s major hospitals and now as DLP activist. He was married in 1968 and has six adult children and six grandchildren (Info and Picture Source: Antony Green)

How to vote cards.
(All how-to-vote cards have been taken from the candidate's website or provided to me by the candidates themselves.)


Fiona Patten - Australian sex Party

Kelly O'Dwyer - Liberal Party

Clive Hamilton - The Greens

Joseph Toscano - Independent

Steve Raskovsky - One Nation 

Peter Brohier
Peter has told me he is not directing preferences or giving out how-to votes


John Mulholland

Polling Places

ARMADALE	Armadale Primary School Densham Rd	8am - 6pm	Yes
ARMADALE	Lauriston Girls School 38 Huntingtower Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
ARMADALE	Malvern Memorial Kindergarten 15 Orchard Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
ASHBURTON	Craig Family Centre 7 Samarinda Ave	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
ASHBURTON	Ashburton Primary School Fakenham Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
ASHBURTON	Solway Primary School Winton Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
CAMBERWELL	Camberwell Primary School 290 Camberwell Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
CAMBERWELL	Camberwell Church of Christ 620 Riversdale Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
CARNEGIE	Carnegie Primary School 51 Truganini Rd	8am - 6pm	No
GLEN IRIS	Melbourne Chinese Christian Church 29 Summerhill Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GLEN IRIS	Sacre Coeur Girls School 172 Burke Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GLEN IRIS	First Camberwell South Scout Hall Ferndale Park, Glen Iris Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GLEN IRIS	Gardiner Church of Christ 1542 Malvern Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
GLEN IRIS	Alfred Road Pre School 48a Alfred Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
GLEN IRIS	Camberwell South Primary School Peate Ave	8am - 6pm	Yes
GLEN IRIS	Glen Iris Road Uniting Church Glen Iris Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
HUGHESDALE	Oakleigh Greek Orthodox College 77-81 Willesden Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
KOOYONG	Vision Australia 454 Glenferrie Rd	8am - 6pm	Yes
MALVERN	Malvern Central School Spring Rd	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
MALVERN	Presbyterian Church Hall 161 Wattletree Road	8am - 6pm	No
MALVERN EAST	Malvern Primary School 17 Tooronga Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
MALVERN EAST	Malvern Valley Primary School Abbotsford Avenue	8am - 6pm	Yes
MALVERN EAST	Malvern East Primary School Lloyd Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
MALVERN EAST	First Malvern Scout Hall Cooinda Pl, Belgrave Rd	8am - 6pm	No
MURRUMBEENA	Murrumbeena Primary School Hobart Rd	8am - 6pm	Yes
PRAHRAN	Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School 7 Wynnstay Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
PRAHRAN	Prahran RSL Memorial Hall 301 High Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
PRAHRAN	Old Prahran Theatre 29-31 Macquarie St	8am - 6pm	No
SOUTH YARRA	South Yarra Community Baptist Church 12 Surrey Road	8am - 6pm	Assisted access
SOUTH YARRA	Toorak-South Yarra Library 340 Toorak Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
SOUTH YARRA	Renown Kindergarten 20 Cliff Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
SOUTH YARRA	Melbourne Girls Grammar Junior School (Morris Hall) 100 Caroline Street	8am - 6pm	Yes
TOORAK	Toorak Uniting Church 603 Toorak Road	8am - 6pm	Yes
TOORAK	Toorak Primary School Canterbury Road	8am - 6pm	No
TOORAK WEST	Melbourne High School Main vehicle access via Alexandra Ave	8am - 6pm	Yes (from 679 Chapel St, South Yarra)
WINDSOR	Stonnington C of C and Community Rec Centre 61-71 McIlwrick	8am - 6pm	Assisted access

 

The NSW spill plus no chance of an early NSW election.

NSW Premier Nathan Rees is to face a leadership spill at 6pm today. Mr Rees had the following to say "Should I not be Premier by the end of the day, let there be no doubt any challenger will be a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi, and that is the reality,"

Some people have said that Nathan Rees should dissolve parliament and call an election to let the people of NSW choose a Government they have faith in. The problem with this is that NSW has fixed election dates with the next not due until March 2011. There's only 3 things that would make  an early election possible.
1. Hold a referendum to change the NSW constituon and remove fixed terms.
2. Nathan Rees (or any premier) loses a no confidence motion..
3. The NSW government breaches an integral policy part of the constituon and gets dimissed.

None of these are likely to happen. Number 2 is the most likely out of the 3 there's only a very small chance of that. To lose a no confidence motion Labor politicians would have to vote against Nathan Rees and with the polls showing Labor facing oblivion at the next election none of them will want to face the voters earlier than they have to.

Sorry NSW voters, you will have to wait until March 2011 to take the baseball bat to the NSW Labor party.

EDIT: Here is the text of the relevant part of the NSW consitutuion. Part 5 is interesting.

24B Dissolution of Legislative Assembly during 4 year term

(1) The Legislative Assembly may be dissolved by the Governor by proclamation, but only in the circumstances authorised by this section.

(2) The Legislative Assembly may be dissolved if:

(a) a motion of no confidence in the Government is passed by the Legislative Assembly (being a motion of which not less than 3 clear days’ notice has been given in the Legislative Assembly), and

(b) during the period commencing on the passage of the motion of no confidence and ending 8 clear days thereafter, the Legislative Assembly has not passed a motion of confidence in the then Government.

After the motion of no confidence is passed, the Legislative Assembly may not be prorogued before the end of that 8-day period and may not be adjourned for a period extending beyond that 8-day period, unless the motion of confidence has been passed.

(3) The Legislative Assembly may be dissolved if it:

(a) rejects a Bill which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government, or

(b) fails to pass such a Bill before the time that the Governor considers that the appropriation is required.

This subsection does not apply to a Bill which appropriates revenue or moneys for the Legislature only.

(4) The Legislative Assembly may be dissolved within 2 months before the Assembly is due to expire if the general election would otherwise be required to be held during the same period as a Commonwealth election, during a holiday period or at any other inconvenient time.

(5) This section does not prevent the Governor from dissolving the Legislative Assembly in circumstances other than those specified in subsections (2)-(4), despite any advice of the Premier or Executive Council, if the Governor could do so in accordance with established constitutional conventions.

(6) When deciding whether the Legislative Assembly should be dissolved in accordance with this section, the Governor is to consider whether a viable alternative Government can be formed without a dissolution and, in so doing, is to have regard to any motion passed by the Legislative Assembly expressing confidence in an alternative Government in which a named person would be Premier.

Live Senate Hearing on the ETS: Take 2 (Take 27?)

Will we get a vote today? Will there more filibusters? Oh the fun...


12pm: My video streaming seems to be replaying the vote again. I have no idea what's currently happening.

11:55am - 33 ayes (Labor + 2 Libs) , 43 nos(Libs, Greens, Nats, and independents). 2 people paired. The ETS has been defeated.

11:53am - Doors have been locked.

11:48am - Here we go. Division required. The bells have been rung.

11:40am -11:45am - Senator Wong is talking again. "The Australian people understand that you do not want to act on climate change" Ahnother argument is we shouldn't go first, other places with CRPS legislated include the European Union which includes countries like the United Kingdom, France and Germany. There's also New Zealand, Japan and the U.S with CPRS legislated. Now I'll talk about the Greens. This legislation may well fail on the Greens vote. Whatever rehtoric they may engage in, they may vote for australia's carbon emission to rise"

Live Senate Hearing on the ETS.

I'm a bit late to the party but the senate is currently sitting. Here are some updates. (Paraphrasing here as I don't do shorthand.)
10:01pm. Sitting of the Senate suspended until 10am tomorrow.
10pm - Final working families count 29Also, Joyce saying something stupid about Chine for no particular reason.
9:57pm - Joyce's working families count up to around 27.
9:54pm - Joyce still rabbiting on and talking crap.
9:51pm - Barnyard actually said something funny "Do they want us to believe that Obama is over there and he wakes Michelle and says 'Michelle I can't sleep I need to know what Rudd's doing on Emissions Trading'"
9:48pm - If you want to see a huge increase if the cost of the piece of conrete you put a house on don't vote for the Labor party.
Comment: The cost of a slab of concrete is not a huge issue in the last survey I saw Mr Joyce
9:47pm - Joyce uses the term 'working families 15 times in about seconds.
9:46pm - Joyce calls Wong arrogant and conceited for not wanting to wait for Copenhagen.
9:44pm - Barnyard busts out "Working Families"
9:43pm - Freudian slip from Joyce? "Will the ETS kill the great barrier reef? NO IT WON'T"
9:41pm - Joyce gets up and starts spouting rubbish.
9:40pm - "You are not good future you are good for the past. You have shown over the past few weeks you are a party of the past. We are a party of the future"
9:37pm :- Wong still waffling on. This woman can talk and she's scary when she's angry and in attack dog mode.
9:34pm - Eric Abetz being warned for being disorderly.
9:32pm - "They have 3 tactics, denial of the scienece, as if we have not had enough warnings. They try to hide behind delay,  they say we're rushing too much. This bill has been before the house since May, this issue has been the subject of 13 enquiries. Does anybody honestly believe more delays would get them to change their mind. 3rd is the scare campaign. The last refuge of those who want to avoid. It is easier to frighten people than to inspire them to change."
9:29pm - Back to bashing the Libs.
9:28pm - Minister Wong still waffling on. Has finally decided to get to the selling points on the ETS inseatd of a non-stop barrage against the Coaltion.
9:25pm Penny Wong is saying the Liberal Party has been hijacked by extremists and has put it's own interests instead of the national interest.
Comment: Don't both major parties do that?

Tony Abbott new Liberal leader - APEC leaders worried.

APEC leaders have expressed their concern about Australia hosting the APEC summit under a Tony Abbott Prime Ministership. Here's why...

Tony Abbot quits, Malcolm Turnbull doomed.

UPDATE: 9:45pm - Judith Adams and David Bushby have resigned as whips.

Breaking News: 5:30pm - Tony Abbot has quit the shadow treasury in response to Malcom Turnbull's deal with the Government on the ETS. Mr Abbot has quit so he can cross the floor and vote against the legislation. He is expected to put himself up for leader in a vote with Tony Smith as his deputy. Fellow shadmow minister Sophie Mirabella has also resigned while the Liberal Ledaer in the senate Eric Abetz is also expected to resign.

This is the end of Turnbull's reign as Liberal Party leader. He won't be able to recover from this. As mentioned earlier Abbot is expected to put his hand up but I don't know why anyone would to lead the Libs to the next election, they will lose in a landslide.

A ridiculous survey by the CDP in Bradfield.

Take a look at this pile of horse manure. Sure the statements may not be "necessarily the policies of any party" but jeez, just look at the weighted questions and blatant racism. If the CDP ever wants to be taken seriously they need to stop this sort of nonsense.

CDP standing 9 candiates at the Bradfield by-election.

The Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) has pulled one of the stupidest stunts of recent times and decided to stand 9 candidates at the upcoming Bradfield by-election. Antony Green has commented on it and CDP candidate James Whitehall has had the following to say 

Antony, in response to several posts regarding the number of candidates fielded by the CDP. The CDP believes that the people of Bradfield should have the right to choose the candidate that they want. Traditionally, the major parties enter into a pre-selection process whereby many candidates (often more than the number of CDP candidates in this by election) vie for ‘pre-selection’. This process involves significant consideration of the various factions and inter-factions within the party with a result that the pre-selected candidate is selected by the final equilibrium of all factional forces, and not necessarily by their overall suitability to the role. The voters can then only vote for this single ‘pre selected’ candidate, and are denied choice. This is the case for the single liberal candidate. The CDP believes that the people of Bradfield should do the choosing, and not the factions. As such, we have not pre-selected our candidates. Each candidate contests the seat on their own merit giving the people of Bradfield a richer pool to choose from, and placing into their hands a freedom from internal party prejudices and skewed priorities.

I attempted to post the following on Antony's blog but some some strange error

Using Jame's Whitehall's logic we could have 50 people on a ballot paper. 10+ from the Libs, 10+ from Labor 5-10 from the Greens, 5-10 from CDP plus the Independents. To James - would you like to stand there (sometimes in 40 degree heat) and number 50 candidates hoping you don't accidentally make a mistake? What a load of rubbish this whole thing is, we would have a 20% informal vote rate and a lower turnout if this was to happen.

EDIT: Got the comment posted.

Essential Research. Labor leads 60-40.

The latest Essential Reserach survey is great news for the Rudd Labor government. The 2PP vote has Labor leading 60%-40% up from 58-42 in the last survey. The promary votes are Labor 51%, Coaltion 33%, Greens 8%, Independent/Others 6% and Family First 2%.

Repsondents were split 39%-39% on whether the Libs/Nats should stay as a Coaliton with 21% undecided.

In other results 62% of respondents approve of the the $20 billion gas deal agreed to with China and 59% of people thought Ricky Ponting should stay on as Captain of the Australian Cricket Team.

These results and more here

Random seat changes:NSW

I've decided to do a report on some random seat changes in NSw that are of interest to me (either seats I know about because they are close to me or seats that may have a bearing on the next election)

Chifley (my seat): Gains: Shanes Park, Marsden Park and Colebee from Greenway (small, rural Liberal-voting suburbs.) Losses: A bit of Blacktown to Greenway.

Greenway: Back to being a small Blacktown seat instead of a huge Hawkesbury seat.
Gains: A bit of Blacktown from Greenway. Seven Hills, Kings Langley, Lalor Park and a bit more from Parramatta. Losses: Heaps in the Hawkesbury area including Richmond and Windsor to Macquarie.

Macarthur: Gains: Warragamba and Badgery Creeks from Fowler. A small amount of Campbelltown from Werriwa. Losses: Oak, Picton and some more small suburbs to Hume.

Kingsford-Smith: Losses: Subrubs in The City of Sydney council area to Sydney.

Watson, Barton and Banks: Change a fair bit and take in St George.

Bennelong, Bradfield, Mackellar, Wentoworth, North Sydney, Dobell, Robertson and Granydler are pretty much unchanged

Federal Seat Changes.

As a result of new boundaries in some states and by elections the notional seat count is now: ALP 88 (up from 83), LIB 50 (down from 55), NAT 9 (down from 10) and IND 3 (up from 2).

State-by-state
NSW (loss of 1 seat) : The safe Labor seat of Reid held by Laurie Ferguson has been abolished.

The marginal Liberal seats of Gilmore, Macarthur and Greenway held by Joanna Gash, Pat Farmer and Louise Markus respectively become marginal Labor seats.

The Safe Labor seat of Macquarie held by Bob Debus now becomes a marginal Labor seat with a margin of just .1%

The safe Nationals seat of Calare held by John Cobb is now a marginal Nationals seat.

Not much happening in other states besides Swan (WA) held by Steve Irons becomes a marginal Labor seat again and Herbert (QLD) held by Peter Lindsay going from marginal Liberal to marginal Labor.

(Please keep in mind these are draft changes and final changes may change the notional margins again.)

With thanks to Antony Green for going through the AEC report and doing an analysis for us.

Andrew Robb as next Liberal Party leader?

That's the latest coming out of Canberra. It might work for a while but he won't win the next election. In fact nobody in the Coalition can barring a major stuff-up from Rudd and Co. I can't see anyone challenging Turnbull until after the election loss and he may in fact resign after the loss.

Turnbull claws back a little bit of ground.

Malcolm Turnbull has clawed back a little bit of public support in the past 2 weeks according to the latest Newspoll conducted for The Australian. The bad news for Mr Turnbull is he trails both Peter Costello and Joe Hockey as preferred Liberal leader. Costello got 36% of the vote with Abbot on 20%, Turnbull on 16% and Tony Abbot on 10%.

The Coalition has jumped 2% on primary votes to trail Labour 43%(steady)-39%. The 2PP has stayed at 55%-45%, a swing of 2.3% to Labor on the 2007 election. If this result was repeated on election day Labor would pick up around 14 extra seats (assuming a universal swing)

Been away for a while.

Will try to post again starting now. Also I'm now on twitter - www.twitter.com/australiavotes